Salesforce DevOps

In this post, we will learn about what is DevOps and the tools available for Salesforce DevOps. Continuous integration (CI) is a Salesforce DevOps software development best practice. Where developers regularly merge their code changes into a central repository, and after that automated builds and tests are run. Let join is to learn about different DevOps Tools available for deployment.

What is DevOps?

DevOps allows the organization to develop and improve the product in a faster way than it can do with other software development approaches. Continuous integration (CI) is a DevOps software development best practice to detect problems and fix them before releasing changes to their customers.

What is Salesforce DevOps?

Salesforce DevOps is the same as actual DevOps and it focused on leveraging Salesforce at scale. This helps development teams detect problems, identify bugs, and fix them before releasing changes to their customers. DevOps = automated, more regular releases

There are a number of tools currently in Salesforce for deployment of these applications, including change sets, Workbench, SalesforceDX, DevOps Center, the Force.com migration tool, CI/CD Pipeline and 3nd part AppExchange tools. Learn about Salesforce Development and Deployment Process.

Benefit of DevOps tools

Here are some benefit of DevOps tool.

• Shorter Development Cycles, Faster Innovation
• Reduced Deployment Failures, Rollbacks, and Time to Recover
• Improved Communication and Collaboration
• Increased Efficiencies

Pillars of a successful Salesforce DevOps

DevOps is a journey which starts with small steps. Make sure the whole team is onboard and up to speed. Layer on complexity when your team and process is ready. There are pillars of a successful DevOps process.

1. Version Control

Version control is the new single source of truth. VCS help to trace back any changes and high-quality gates of security.

2. CI/CD Pipeline

CI/CD is Not just for deploying changes. It more then that. It allow us to validate the build, Do automation testing and helped us in code backup. CI/CD ensures reliable deployment and a lower code coverage failure rate.

3. Automation Testing

A good DevOps tool always perform automation testing for you.

4. Backup

Protect yourself from malicious attacks, Salesforce bugs, accidental deletions, etc.

5. Code Scanning

Code scanning tools help to automate the manual process of code review in Salesforce. We can use Static Code Analyzer tools for same.

Learn more about DevOps 5 pillars.

Let’s Understand the CI/CD

Let’s understand the difference term of CI/CD

1. Continuous Integration

Using continuous integration, a product is made to incorporate and integrate each code modification on each commit (continuously), by any and all developers. an automated build then verifies each check-in, letting teams detect issues early.

2. Continuous Delivery

Continuous delivery ensures that code will be speedily and safely deployed to production by manually pushing each change to a production-like environment. Since each modification is automatically delivered to a staging environment, you’ll be able to deploy the application to production with a push of a button once the time is correct.

3. Continuous Deployment

Continuous deployment is the next step of continuous delivery. using Continuous deployment, each modification that passes the automated tests is deployed to production automatically. Most firms that aren’t bound by regulatory or other constraints should have a goal of continuous deployment

Salesforce DevOps Tools

There are different DevOps Tools are available. Which can be divided into the below category.

1. Native Tools

Those DevOps Tools which you can use within Salesforce. This can be Salesforce tools or AppExchanges tools.

1. Salesforce DevOps Center: DevOps Center is all about change and release management and introducing DevOps best practices to our entire community, regardless of where you fall on the low-code to pro-code spectrum.
2. Copado: Copado is the only Quality-Driven, Low-Code DevOps and Automated Testing Platform and other Clouds.
3. Flosum: The Flosum platform is a complete end-to-end DevOps platform that is highly scalable, reliable and fully integrated into the platform.

2. Custom Build

You can build your own tool using different CI/CD platforms. Like below:

1. Jenkines: Jenkins is an open-source continuous integration software. It is written using the Java programming language. It facilitates real-time testing and reporting on isolated changes in a more massive codebase. You can build your custom pipeline using this tool. Learn more Salesforce deployment using Jenkins
2. CumulusCI: CumulusCI makes it easy for developers, admins, and testers to do their work and collaborate in version control. Check Automate the App Lifecycle with CumulusCI to learn more.
3. Azure DevOps: Check Azure DevOps with Salesforce to learn about step by step.
4. Gitlab pipelines: Build CI/CD pipeline using Gitlab for Salesforce.
5. GitHub Actions: DevOps Using GitHub Actions.
6. Team City

3. Other Tools

There are some other tools also available which is not native to Salesforce. But do all end to DevOps deployment.

• AutoRabit : AutoRABIT provides tools to address the varied needs of a DevOps pipeline
• Gearset: Lightning-fast SF release speed. Ultimate ROI. Level up your DevOps process with Gearset. The only DevOps Platform you’ll ever need. Automate & speed up your pipeline for max ROI

Based on all above tools you can decide you need build a DevOps process or buy. Base on your company budget you can decide. Check about Sandbox Design Strategies for Enterprise Implementations.

Mastering Salesforce DevOps video

Checkout our old session to become the master in DevOps.

DevOps at Google

Different clients use DevOps in different ways. Check how Google uses DevOps

Salesforce DevOps Best Practices

So far we understand what is DevOps and which all are important part of Successful DevOps. Let see some DevOps Best practices.

1. Environment Strategy: Environment Strategy in Salesforce is very important part of DevOps. Before defining that you should know about team size, release cycle and Agile development mode. Learn about Sandbox design Strategies.
2. Branching Strategy: Once you know about environment. Then next best practice for DevOps is setup the Branching Strategy for Salesforce.
3. Build Vs Buy: We talk about different DevOps Tools. Now question is we should use AppExchange product, 3rd part tools or Open-Source tools to build deployment pipeline? This all depend on client budget, tool set, in-house expertise and more.
4. Setup Release Management: Good defined process and release management is Pillars of DevOps best practices.

FAQ’s

Summary

Salesforce DevOps is a culture and a set of process that bring development and operations teams together to complete software development. I hope after looking into all DevOps Tools you can decide your deployment strategy and process.